New LABRAT Campaign Exploits GitLab Flaw for Cryptojacking and Proxyjacking Activities
A new, financially motivated operation dubbed LABRAT has been observed weaponizing a now-patched critical flaw in GitLab as part of a cryptojacking and proxyjacking campaign. "The attacker utilized undetected signature-based tools, sophisticated and stealthy cross-platform malware, command-and-control (C2) tools which bypassed firewalls, and kernel-based rootkits to hide their presence," Sysdig said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Furthermore, the attacker abused a legitimate service, TryCloudflare, to obfuscate their C2 network." Proxyjacking allows the attacker to rent the compromised host out to a proxy network, making it possible to monetize the unused bandwidth. Cryptojacking, on the other hand, refers to the abuse of the system resources to mine cryptocurrency. A notable aspect of the campaign is the use of compiled binaries written in Go and .NET to fly under the radar, with LABRAT also providing backdoor access to the infected systems. This cou